On 17 March, Thursday, the ENSEMBLE consortium held its final public event in Brussels, marking the end of the 46-month project, which closes officially on 31 March, with discussions of the project’s achievements and results. Experts and high level speakers contributed to the debate about the adoption of multi-brand platooning in Europe at the hybrid event with over 200 invitees connected to follow the livestream.
Joost Vantomme, CEO at ERTICO-ITS Europe, and Marika Hoedemaeker, ENSEMBLE project coordinator, opened the event underlining the insights and the achievements that the ENSEMBLE project delivered in technology and innovation, strengthening the collaboration between the relevant market actors and associations.
Four European Commission representatives, Ewa Ptaszynska, Deputy Head of Unit, Road Transport Unit, DG Move; Patrick Mercier-Handisyde, Senior Policy Officer, Future Urban & Mobility Systems, DG RTD; Antony Lagrange, Team Leader Automated/Connected Vehicles and Safety, DG GROW; and Georgios Sarros, Project Officer, Horizon Europe Transport, CINEA, kicked off the first panel of the day discussing the European perspective on the development of truck platooning technology.
An important high point of the discussion was Antony Lagrange’s confirmation that the next logical step for the European Commission would be to recognise ENSEMBLE’s harmonised V2V protocol format enabling truck platooning via an implementation measure of the General Vehicle Safety Regulation 2019/2144.
Kristof Rombaut, from the Flemish Road Operator Agency - Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer - acknowledged the importance for Flanders to become a digital road operator in support of connected and automated driving.
The event moved to more technical speeches welcoming the experts from TNO, Université Gustave Eiffel, Applus IDIADA, and all ENSEMBLE partners. First, the impact of multi-brand truck platooning was discussed from different angles starting with Dehlia Willemsen (TNO) who presented the results from real life testing. Then, Nico Deschle (TNO) analysed the impact of multi-brand truck platooning on fuel consumption, Kinjal Bhattacharyya (Université Gustave Eiffel) discussed the impact on traffic flow and Christoph Jallais (Université Gustave Eiffel) closed the morning session with a presentation of the impact on road users.
After the break, the future of multi-brand truck platooning became the main topic of the afternoon sessions. Francois Combes (Université Gustave Eiffel) opened the debate introducing the economic business case of ENSEMBLE, followed by Ernst-Jan van Ark (TNO) who focused on platoon matching. Carlos Lujan (Applus IDIADA) concluded the technical speeches with his work about future regulations.
Future implementations of the platooning technology were the key topic of the panel discussion with external stakeholders. Carin ten Hage successfully moderated the talk between Stefan Deix, Director EUCAR/CCAM Association, David Storer, Director Research Innovation & New Mobility – CLEPA, Steve Phillips, Secretary General, CEDR, Carlo Giro, Manager-EU Goods Transport IRU and Marika Hoedemaeker, ENSEMBLE Project Coordinator.
The Press Release can be downloaded here.
For the technical speeches, PPT presentations can be downloaded here.
To learn more about ENSEMBLE project watch this video and read the project brochure available here.
Pictures are available in the gallery, here.